‘Old Cold War warrior’ imagines war with Russia

An employee of the German Historic Museum carries an observation monitor past a sign, marking the limits of Berlin's former American sector, November 5, 2004 in Berlin | Michael Urban/AFP via Getty images

An employee of the German Historic Museum carries an observation monitor past a sign, marking the limits of Berlin's former American sector, November 5, 2004 in Berlin | Michael Urban/AFP via Getty images

LONDON — A blow-by-blow of Russia’s invasion of the Baltic States in May 2017, and the nuclear Armageddon it could unleash, is already available in hardback.

Splayed across a red cover illustrated with tanks and exploding warheads, the title reads: “2017: War with Russia — An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command.”

General Sir Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army officer and former NATO deputy supreme commander for Europe, describes his first literary foray as a “slightly racy novel.” It sketches out a fictional war that includes cyberattacks, fighter jets, and nuclear missiles — a scenario he claims is “entirely plausible.”

Shirreff’s career move from military man to doomsday prophecy novelist comes at a time when relations between Russia and NATO show little sign of thawing, and Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev warns the world has entered a “new Cold War.”

His 37-year military career spanned the First Gulf War, three tours in Northern Ireland and peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Bosnia. He also served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, a time of heightened conflict. His experience informed the novel, but he was keen to keep the contents “firmly in the pages of fiction.”

“2017: War with Russia” is a blend of genres: part spy novel, part think-tank paper, and part satirical memoir, the novel is heavily influenced by John Le Carré and the films of Peter Sellers. (“Dr. Strangelove,” in which the world charges madly towards nuclear conflict, comes to mind.)

The book has its fair amount of cheesy pantomime villainy and comic book heroism. Its cast is a jumble of pseudo-fictional officials, spies, jet pilots, provocateurs, and kidnapped soldiers. But, if the book is unlikely to attract much literary praise, it is eminently readable — and often downright gripping.

* * *

Without giving too much away, the story is set post British exit from the European Union. The U.S. has just elected a new president (a vague mash-up of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton). Emboldened by signs of frailty and disunity in the West, the Russian president — a crafty, callous adrenaline addict and Shakespeare enthusiast — re-engages in the war in Ukraine and activates a plan to invade the Baltics. Russia claims to want to protect Russian-speakers living in the region, but what the Kremlin really wants, it turns out, is to discredit an already flailing NATO Alliance. Russia deploys a variety of non-conventional war tactics — cyberattacks and disinformation designed to confuse and delay NATO’s response — while it presses ahead with a full scale attack.

NATO, meanwhile, is bogged down in a series of painful deliberations over whether to invoke its Article 5 on common defense. Here, Shirreff reveals his own longstanding exasperation with the interminable squabbling of Brussels diplomats at NATO headquarters. If the story has a moral, it is this: Hollow out defense spending at your peril, because NATO will take too long to react to a serious threat and the nuclear option is not a credible one.

Deterrence, Sherriff argues, is as important now as it was during the Cold War. But must be done differently. Unless NATO beefs up its defenses in the Baltic region, the vacuum will needlessly tempt Vladimir Putin, whose regime has already shown its willingness to break international security agreements. He cites Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, its seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and incursions in eastern Ukraine.

The gloomy geopolitical backdrop, and Shirreff’s clamorous, brash and undiplomatic literary style, has left the U.K. government bristling over Shirreff’s decision to swerve beyond a modestly conventional retirement route of memoirs, lecture circuits and golf courses.

Hammond harshly dismissed the soldier’s warnings. “I don’t think there’s anybody serious around who thinks the kind of scenario he is postulating is remotely likely,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.

“None of us should be complacent about what the future might hold,” Shirreff responded, in an interview with POLITICO at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Mayfair.

This was just the latest in a series of lively public crossfires between the two men. They reportedly clashed over cuts to the armed services when Hammond was defense minister. When Shirreff called the cuts “a hell of a gamble,” Hammond threatened to have him court-martialled, Shirreff recalled. Hammond has denied this.

“Some people may say that a retired general, writing a book saying that we are in danger of war and therefore we need to bolster our defenses, is an old Cold War warrior looking for a return to good old days,” Shirreff said. “Well, far from it, actually.”

His book’s basic premises, Shirreff maintains, are based on the findings of recent war games and reports focused on NATO’s northeastern flank, some of which Shirreff himself helped draw up. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — EU and NATO members since 2004 — are widely considered to be vulnerable flashpoints in the ongoing standoff between NATO and Russia, which has been re-militarizing in the region and probing Baltic air and sea space over the last few years, often conducting snap drills close by.

* * *

Concerns over NATO’s ability to respond to Russian expansionism is widespread, and Shirreff is by no means a lone voice on the subject. A recent report by RAND Corporation, a think tank with ties to the U.S. military, suggested current NATO forces deployed in the Baltics would be outgunned “within days” of a potential Russian invasion. The BBC show “Inside the War Room” dramatized NATO attempts to cool off a hypothetical pro-Russian separatist movement a majority Russian-speaking part of a Baltic country.

“It’s in our interests to see the Baltic states are properly defended so we avoid the ghastly events that I outline,” said Shirreff.

He is heavily skeptical of NATO countries who rely too heavily on the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence capabilities or Rapid Reaction force to deter a possible Russian invasion. A nuclear response would be disproportionate, he argued, and a rapid reaction force would always to be too slow onto the scene.

“If the first recourse you have is to nuclear,” he asked, “is that really credible? Much, much better to be able to match deterrence at every level.”

NATO must station forces on the ground to deter Moscow, Shirreff argues, waving aside concerns about whether this would contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which, some claim, included a commitment to Russia that no substantial permanent NATO force could ever be stationed in the Baltics. He points to the number of international agreements Russia has already contravened, and to ambiguity in the language of the agreement.

The book is a military man’s rallying cry of the likes of Sir John Hackett’s 1979 “The Third World War.” Ultimately Shirreff wants the novels to be preventative, rather than prescient. His book, he says, is not “fiction as such:” It is “fact-based prediction, very closely modeled on what I know.”

Still, the novel form, Shirreff has come to believe, is the only way to keep his message from drowning in the morass of think-tank papers, while Whitehall policymakers, keen to cut back on defense spending, look on with indifference.

“In a democracy, these are issues that people need to think about and need to understand,” he said forcefully. “It’s not something you can just relegate to specialists and experts.”

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Walter S

So Politico is trying to make people think that Brexit will lead to World War 3 now? Seriously?

Posted on 6/6/16 | 8:07 AM CET

Petr

Walter S. You seem to struggle with reading comprehension and have a wild imagination. The EU is barely even mentioned in the article and to be honest I think most of Europe is quite tired of the UK “feeling special” for unknown reason and its leaving the EU (and joining the Organization of Islamic Cooperation sooner or later) cannot come soon enough.

Posted on 6/6/16 | 11:09 AM CET

JanV

War with Russia is plausible. The European armies are sitting ducks compared to Russian forces, certainly now that Russia gained war experience in Syria. What if future US president Trump leaves Europe on its own? Europe better start raising military capabilities immediately and start drafting young men. By the way, this would reduce youth unemployment.

Posted on 6/6/16 | 2:30 PM CET

Anthony Clifton

President Obama has failed to show what our NATO allies expect in an American President, Leadership. He has failed to grasp, understand and resolutely respond to the threat of Vladimir Putin and Russian aggression. His foreign policy mistakes such as his “Red line” in Syria and failure to support Ukraine have shown our allies how inept and clueless he is in formulating and implementing a foreign policy that our allies can have confidence in.

The United States is the leader of the NATO alliance and its leadership is vital to the cohesiveness and success of its collective security mission. Without that leadership there is no alliance. Vladimir Putin has adroitly profited from this lack of Leadership on the part of President Obama. Only now in his last few months as President does he seem to FINALLY get it in understanding to nature of the threat that comes not only from Vladimir Putin in Europe but the Chinese pursuing an aggressive course of hegemony in the South China Sea.

President Obama is finally implementing the badly needed political/military actions that are necessary to deter any further Russian threats on the North Eastern flank of NATO in the Baltic States by positioning on a rotational basis NATO forces there to act as a “Speed Bump” and the establishment of Missile interceptor sites in Romania and Poland to demonstrate to Vladimir Putin the kind of resolve and commitment to NATO’s collective security that Putin has NOT been seeing enough of and establishing a ring of security agreements in Asia with the Philippines, South Korea, even Vietnam who are as worried by China’s actions as we are.

Posted on 6/6/16 | 4:16 PM CET

SteveH

Just as an old Army Reservist — I don’t think either Russia or Vladimir Putin care at all about Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia. Putin, however, does care very much about breaking NATO. Based on that, I would expect the Russian military to do something very dramatic on June 22nd, the 75th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa (and the day before the Brexit vote).

Posted on 6/6/16 | 4:55 PM CET

Petr

SteveH: Of course they do care about the countries they occupied for 50 years. They are dzing to restore the old “glory” of the Evil Empire. That’s the problem with Russia… it does not know where it begins and where it ends yet it has an unsatiable appetite to gobble up more and more territory while failing to govern Russia proper. The population has been collectively ass-raped by the bolsheviks for three quarters of a century, enduring endless misery and starvation because of them, yet Stalin and Lenin are still revered as “great Russians”

Anthony Cifton: Yopu are right, Obama was clueless and genuinely naive and Putin played him like violin until the invasion to Ukraine. Unfortunately there is not much hope for improvement. Clinton has been Obama’s waterboy executing the silly “reset” with Russia and that boorish clown Trump with his links to Kremlin is outright scary.

Posted on 6/6/16 | 6:10 PM CET

rus_programmer

Petr, I went through the Cuba crisis as a young soldier in a specialist unit, if you have any sense at
all, you will get your politicians to get nato away from the Russian border, the American military industrial complex are looking for a fight, and if the europeans fall for it they will be very sorry, all of us will be. If Kennedy had not held the hawks back we would all be gone by now.

Posted on 6/7/16 | 12:41 AM CET

Dan Shays

More anti-Russian propaganda, so prevalent in the post Soviet Western media.

Posted on 6/7/16 | 2:13 AM CET

Atmer

pure russophobia

Posted on 6/7/16 | 6:58 AM CET

Walter S

Read between the lines, Petr. Or more to the point, ask yourself why is Politico reporting on some guy’s book right before the Brexit referendum, in which Brexit leads to nuclear war with Russia? There’s absolutely no reason to write a fictional book review on a political news site unless you’re trying to imply that fiction is reality, and link in people’s minds what you want them to link in their minds. Right there in the third to last paragraph, the author even says it. “It is fact-based prediction”. Yeah, okay, Politico, we get it, you don’t like Brexit. Brexit = nuclear armageddon.

Posted on 6/7/16 | 10:54 AM CET

BlindOracle

Over the last few years, Putin has evolved from a seemingly democratic president to an outright dictator. He is not so hard to understand, just read Machiavelli. Unfortunately this means that a scenario like this is more plausible than most people would think. Putin has been preparing for war since at least 2013, probably much longer. After that, Ukraine was only the beginning. And yet there is some kind of blind spot: what will Belarus do? Will they be on Russia’s side? Stay neutral? Even side with NATO? That might save us, but I don’t really think so. The West must prepare for war, even if it is only to secure peace.